The Dawn-Breakers: Nabíl’s Narrative of the Early Days of the Bahá’í Revelation

Nabil

“Before I quit the subject of the Persian law and its administration,
let me add a few words upon the subject of
penalties and prisons. Nothing is more shocking to the European
reader, in pursuing his way through the crime-stained
and bloody pages of Persian history during the last and, in a
happily less degree, during the present century, than the
record of savage punishments and abominable tortures, testifying
alternately to the callousness of the brute and the
ingenuity of the fiend. The Persian character has ever been
fertile in device and indifferent to suffering; and in the field
of judicial executions it has found ample scope for the exercise
of both attainments. Up till quite a recent period, well
within the borders of the present reign, condemned criminals
have been crucified, blown from guns, buried alive, impaled,
shod like horses, torn asunder by being bound to the heads of
two trees bent together and then allowed to spring back to
their natural position, converted into human torches, flayed
while living.
xlviii

“…Under a twofold governing system, such as that of
which I have now completed the description—namely, an
administration in which every actor is, in different aspects,
both the briber and the bribed; and a judicial procedure,
without either a law or a law court—it will readily be understood
that confidence in the Government is not likely to
exist, that there is no personal sense of duty or pride of
honour, no mutual trust or co-operation (except in the service
of ill-doing), no disgrace in exposure, no credit in virtue,
above all no national spirit or patriotism. Those philosophers
are right who argue that moral must precede material, and
internal exterior, reform in Persia. It is useless to graft new
shoots on to a stem whose own sap is exhausted or poisoned.
We may give Persia roads and railroads; we may work her
mines and exploit her resources; we may drill her army and
clothe her artisans; but we shall not have brought her within
the pale of civilised nations until we have got at the core of
the people, and given a new and a radical twist to the national
character and institutions. I have drawn this picture of
Persian administration, which I believe to be true, in order
that English readers may understand the system with which
reformers, whether foreigners or natives, have to contend,
and the iron wall of resistance, built up by all the most
selfish instincts in human nature, that is opposed to progressive
ideas. The Sháh himself, however genuine his desire
for innovation, is to some extent enlisted on the side of this
pernicious system, seeing that he owes to it his private fortune;
while those who most loudly condemn it in private are
not behind their fellows in outwardly bowing their heads in
the temple of Rimmon. In every rank below the sovereign,
the initiative is utterly wanting to start a rebellion against the
tyranny of immemorial custom; and if a strong man like the
present king can only tentatively undertake it, where is he
who shall preach the crusade?”